<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML
><HEAD
><TITLE
>Bug Reporting Guidelines</TITLE
><META
NAME="GENERATOR"
CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK
REV="MADE"
HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"><LINK
REL="HOME"
TITLE="PostgreSQL 9.1.2 Documentation"
HREF="index.html"><LINK
REL="UP"
TITLE="Preface"
HREF="preface.html"><LINK
REL="PREVIOUS"
TITLE="Further Information"
HREF="resources.html"><LINK
REL="NEXT"
TITLE="Tutorial"
HREF="tutorial.html"><LINK
REL="STYLESHEET"
TYPE="text/css"
HREF="stylesheet.css"><META
HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type"
CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><META
NAME="creation"
CONTENT="2011-12-01T22:07:59"></HEAD
><BODY
CLASS="SECT1"
><DIV
CLASS="NAVHEADER"
><TABLE
SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TH
COLSPAN="5"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="index.html"
>PostgreSQL 9.1.2 Documentation</A
></TH
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
TITLE="Further Information"
HREF="resources.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="preface.html"
ACCESSKEY="U"
>Up</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="60%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
>Preface</TD
><TD
WIDTH="20%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
><A
TITLE="Tutorial"
HREF="tutorial.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT1"
><H1
CLASS="SECT1"
><A
NAME="BUG-REPORTING"
>Bug Reporting Guidelines</A
></H1
><P
>  When you find a bug in <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> we want to
  hear about it. Your bug reports play an important part in making
  <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> more reliable because even the utmost
  care cannot guarantee that every part of
  <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
>
  will work on every platform under every circumstance.
 </P
><P
>  The following suggestions are intended to assist you in forming bug reports
  that can be handled in an effective fashion. No one is required to follow
  them but doing so tends to be to everyone's advantage.
 </P
><P
>  We cannot promise to fix every bug right away. If the bug is obvious, critical,
  or affects a lot of users, chances are good that someone will look into it. It
  could also happen that we tell you to update to a newer version to see if the
  bug happens there. Or we might decide that the bug
  cannot be fixed before some major rewrite we might be planning is done. Or
  perhaps it is simply too hard and there are more important things on the agenda.
  If you need help immediately, consider obtaining a commercial support contract.
 </P
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN267"
>Identifying Bugs</A
></H2
><P
>   Before you report a bug, please read and re-read the
   documentation to verify that you can really do whatever it is you are
   trying. If it is not clear from the documentation whether you can do
   something or not, please report that too; it is a bug in the documentation.
   If it turns out that a program does something different from what the
   documentation says, that is a bug. That might include, but is not limited to,
   the following circumstances:

   <P
></P
></P><UL
><LI
><P
>      A program terminates with a fatal signal or an operating system
      error message that would point to a problem in the program. (A
      counterexample might be a <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"disk full"</SPAN
> message,
      since you have to fix that yourself.)
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      A program produces the wrong output for any given input.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      A program refuses to accept valid input (as defined in the documentation).
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      A program accepts invalid input without a notice or error message.
      But keep in mind that your idea of invalid input might be our idea of
      an extension or compatibility with traditional practice.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> fails to compile, build, or
      install according to the instructions on supported platforms.
     </P
></LI
></UL
><P>

   Here <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"program"</SPAN
> refers to any executable, not only the backend process.
  </P
><P
>   Being slow or resource-hogging is not necessarily a bug. Read the
   documentation or ask on one of the mailing lists for help in tuning your
   applications. Failing to comply to the <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>SQL</ACRONYM
> standard is
   not necessarily a bug either, unless compliance for the
   specific feature is explicitly claimed.
  </P
><P
>   Before you continue, check on the TODO list and in the FAQ to see if your bug is
   already known. If you cannot decode the information on the TODO list, report your
   problem. The least we can do is make the TODO list clearer.
  </P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN287"
>What to Report</A
></H2
><P
>   The most important thing to remember about bug reporting is to state all
   the facts and only facts. Do not speculate what you think went wrong, what
   <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"it seemed to do"</SPAN
>, or which part of the program has a fault.
   If you are not familiar with the implementation you would probably guess
   wrong and not help us a bit. And even if you are, educated explanations are
   a great supplement to but no substitute for facts. If we are going to fix
   the bug we still have to see it happen for ourselves first.
   Reporting the bare facts
   is relatively straightforward (you can probably copy and paste them from the
   screen) but all too often important details are left out because someone
   thought it does not matter or the report would be understood
   anyway.
  </P
><P
>   The following items should be contained in every bug report:

   <P
></P
></P><UL
><LI
><P
>      The exact sequence of steps <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>from program
      start-up</I
></SPAN
> necessary to reproduce the problem. This
      should be self-contained; it is not enough to send in a bare
      <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>SELECT</TT
> statement without the preceding
      <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>CREATE TABLE</TT
> and <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>INSERT</TT
>
      statements, if the output should depend on the data in the
      tables. We do not have the time to reverse-engineer your
      database schema, and if we are supposed to make up our own data
      we would probably miss the problem.
     </P
><P
>      The best format for a test case for SQL-related problems is a
      file that can be run through the <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>psql</SPAN
>
      frontend that shows the problem. (Be sure to not have anything
      in your <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>~/.psqlrc</TT
> start-up file.)  An easy
      way to create this file is to use <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>pg_dump</SPAN
>
      to dump out the table declarations and data needed to set the
      scene, then add the problem query.  You are encouraged to
      minimize the size of your example, but this is not absolutely
      necessary.  If the bug is reproducible, we will find it either
      way.
     </P
><P
>      If your application uses some other client interface, such as <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>PHP</SPAN
>, then
      please try to isolate the offending queries. We will probably not set up a
      web server to reproduce your problem. In any case remember to provide
      the exact input files; do not guess that the problem happens for
      <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"large files"</SPAN
> or <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"midsize databases"</SPAN
>, etc. since this
      information is too inexact to be of use.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      The output you got. Please do not say that it <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"didn't work"</SPAN
> or
      <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"crashed"</SPAN
>. If there is an error message,
      show it, even if you do not understand it. If the program terminates with
      an operating system error, say which. If nothing at all happens, say so.
      Even if the result of your test case is a program crash or otherwise obvious
      it might not happen on our platform. The easiest thing is to copy the output
      from the terminal, if possible.
     </P
><DIV
CLASS="NOTE"
><BLOCKQUOTE
CLASS="NOTE"
><P
><B
>Note: </B
>       If you are reporting an error message, please obtain the most verbose
       form of the message.  In <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>psql</SPAN
>, say <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>\set
       VERBOSITY verbose</TT
> beforehand.  If you are extracting the message
       from the server log, set the run-time parameter
       <A
HREF="runtime-config-logging.html#GUC-LOG-ERROR-VERBOSITY"
>log_error_verbosity</A
> to <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>verbose</TT
> so that all
       details are logged.
      </P
></BLOCKQUOTE
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="NOTE"
><BLOCKQUOTE
CLASS="NOTE"
><P
><B
>Note: </B
>       In case of fatal errors, the error message reported by the client might
       not contain all the information available. Please also look at the
       log output of the database server. If you do not keep your server's log
       output, this would be a good time to start doing so.
      </P
></BLOCKQUOTE
></DIV
></LI
><LI
><P
>      The output you expected is very important to state. If you just write
      <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"This command gives me that output."</SPAN
> or <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"This is not
      what I expected."</SPAN
>, we might run it ourselves, scan the output, and
      think it looks OK and is exactly what we expected. We should not have to
      spend the time to decode the exact semantics behind your commands.
      Especially refrain from merely saying that <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"This is not what SQL says/Oracle
      does."</SPAN
> Digging out the correct behavior from <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>SQL</ACRONYM
>
      is not a fun undertaking, nor do we all know how all the other relational
      databases out there behave. (If your problem is a program crash, you can
      obviously omit this item.)
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      Any command line options and other start-up options, including
      any relevant environment variables or configuration files that
      you changed from the default. Again, please provide exact
      information. If you are using a prepackaged distribution that
      starts the database server at boot time, you should try to find
      out how that is done.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      Anything you did at all differently from the installation
      instructions.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      The <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> version. You can run the command
      <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>SELECT version();</TT
> to
      find out the version of the server you are connected to.  Most executable
      programs also support a <TT
CLASS="OPTION"
>--version</TT
> option; at least
      <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>postgres --version</TT
> and <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>psql --version</TT
>
      should work.
      If the function or the options do not exist then your version is
      more than old enough to warrant an upgrade.
      If you run a prepackaged version, such as RPMs, say so, including any
      subversion the package might have. If you are talking about a Git
      snapshot, mention that, including the commit hash.
     </P
><P
>      If your version is older than 9.1.2 we will almost certainly
      tell you to upgrade. There are many bug fixes and improvements
      in each new release, so it is quite possible that a bug you have
      encountered in an older release of <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
>
      has already been fixed. We can only provide limited support for
      sites using older releases of <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
>; if you
      require more than we can provide, consider acquiring a
      commercial support contract.
     </P
><P
>     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      Platform information. This includes the kernel name and version,
      C library, processor, memory information, and so on. In most
      cases it is sufficient to report the vendor and version, but do
      not assume everyone knows what exactly <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"Debian"</SPAN
>
      contains or that everyone runs on i386s. If you have
      installation problems then information about the toolchain on
      your machine (compiler, <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>make</SPAN
>, and so
      on) is also necessary.
     </P
></LI
></UL
><P>

   Do not be afraid if your bug report becomes rather lengthy. That is a fact of life.
   It is better to report everything the first time than us having to squeeze the
   facts out of you. On the other hand, if your input files are huge, it is
   fair to ask first whether somebody is interested in looking into it.  Here is
   an <A
HREF="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html"
TARGET="_top"
>article</A
>
   that outlines some more tips on reporting bugs.
  </P
><P
>   Do not spend all your time to figure out which changes in the input make
   the problem go away. This will probably not help solving it. If it turns
   out that the bug cannot be fixed right away, you will still have time to
   find and share your work-around. Also, once again, do not waste your time
   guessing why the bug exists. We will find that out soon enough.
  </P
><P
>   When writing a bug report, please avoid confusing terminology.
   The software package in total is called <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"PostgreSQL"</SPAN
>,
   sometimes <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"Postgres"</SPAN
> for short. If you
   are specifically talking about the backend process, mention that, do not
   just say <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"PostgreSQL crashes"</SPAN
>.  A crash of a single
   backend process is quite different from crash of the parent
   <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"postgres"</SPAN
> process; please don't say <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"the server
   crashed"</SPAN
> when you mean a single backend process went down, nor vice versa.
   Also, client programs such as the interactive frontend <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>psql</SPAN
>"</SPAN
>
   are completely separate from the backend.  Please try to be specific
   about whether the problem is on the client or server side.
  </P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN354"
>Where to Report Bugs</A
></H2
><P
>   In general, send bug reports to the bug report mailing list at
   <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>.
   You are requested to use a descriptive subject for your email
   message, perhaps parts of the error message.
  </P
><P
>   Another method is to fill in the bug report web-form available
   at the project's
   <A
HREF="http://www.postgresql.org/"
TARGET="_top"
>web site</A
>.
   Entering a bug report this way causes it to be mailed to the
   <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
> mailing list.
  </P
><P
>   If your bug report has security implications and you'd prefer that it
   not become immediately visible in public archives, don't send it to
   <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>pgsql-bugs</TT
>.  Security issues can be
   reported privately to <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:security@postgresql.org"
>security@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>.
  </P
><P
>   Do not send bug reports to any of the user mailing lists, such as
   <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-sql@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-sql@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
> or
   <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-general@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-general@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>.
   These mailing lists are for answering
   user questions, and their subscribers normally do not wish to receive
   bug reports. More importantly, they are unlikely to fix them.
  </P
><P
>   Also, please do <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>not</I
></SPAN
> send reports to
   the developers' mailing list <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>.
   This list is for discussing the
   development of <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
>, and it would be nice
   if we could keep the bug reports separate. We might choose to take up a
   discussion about your bug report on <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>pgsql-hackers</TT
>,
   if the problem needs more review.
  </P
><P
>   If you have a problem with the documentation, the best place to report it
   is the documentation mailing list <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-docs@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-docs@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>.
   Please be specific about what part of the documentation you are unhappy
   with.
  </P
><P
>   If your bug is a portability problem on a non-supported platform,
   send mail to <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org"
>pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>,
   so we (and you) can work on
   porting <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> to your platform.
  </P
><DIV
CLASS="NOTE"
><BLOCKQUOTE
CLASS="NOTE"
><P
><B
>Note: </B
>    Due to the unfortunate amount of spam going around, all of the above
    email addresses are closed mailing lists. That is, you need to be
    subscribed to a list to be allowed to post on it.  (You need not be
    subscribed to use the bug-report web form, however.)
    If you would like to send mail but do not want to receive list traffic,
    you can subscribe and set your subscription option to <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>nomail</TT
>.
    For more information send mail to
    <CODE
CLASS="EMAIL"
>&#60;<A
HREF="mailto:majordomo@postgresql.org"
>majordomo@postgresql.org</A
>&#62;</CODE
>
    with the single word <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>help</TT
> in the body of the message.
   </P
></BLOCKQUOTE
></DIV
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="resources.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="index.html"
ACCESSKEY="H"
>Home</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="tutorial.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
>Further Information</TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="preface.html"
ACCESSKEY="U"
>Up</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
>Tutorial</TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
></BODY
></HTML
>